Plant plastoquinol oxidase (PTOX) is a chloroplast oxidoreductase involved in carotenoid biosynthesis, chlororespiration, and response to environmental stresses. The present study aimed to gain insight of the potential role of nucleotide/amino acid changes linked to environmental adaptation in PTOX gene/protein from Arabidopsis thaliana accessions. SNPs in the single-copy PTOX gene were identified in 1190 accessions of Arabidopsis using the Columbia-0 PTOX as a reference. The identified SNPs were correlated with geographical distribution of the accessions according to altitude, climate, and rainfall...

Approximately half of stroke survivors suffer from clinically significant fatigue, contributing to poor quality of life, depression, dependency, and increased mortality. The etiology of post-stroke fatigue is not well understood and treatment is limited. This study tested the hypothesis that systemic aerobic energy metabolism, as reflected by platelet oxygen consumption, is negatively associated with fatigue and systemic inflammation is positively associated with fatigue in chronic ischemic stroke survivors...

Thylakoids are highly protein-enriched membranes that harbor a number of multicomponent photosynthetic complexes. Similarly to other biological membranes the protein constituents are heterogeneously distributed laterally in the plane of the membrane, however the specific segregation into stacked (grana patches) and unstacked (stroma lamellae) membrane layers is a unique feature of the thylakoid. Both the lateral and the vertical arrangements of the integral membrane proteins within the three-dimensional thylakoid ultrastructure are thought to have important physiological function...

The topic of human adult neural plasticity and neurogenesis is of great interest for medical and scientific community, but it is also largely debated. In the last years, an increasing interest has been paid to the olfactory system, and particularly to the plasticity of the olfactory bulb (OB). While the molecular/cellular mechanisms underlying OB plasticity remain a matter of debate, measurements of the OB using magnetic resonance imaging clearly indicate that it is a highly plastic structure. In this review, we present results regarding the plasticity of the human adult olfactory system...

The phospholipid environment of the mitochondrial inner membrane, which contains large amounts of cardiolipin, could play a key role in transport of the long chain fatty acids. In the present study, the pre-incubation of cardiolipin with the wild type carnitine palmitoyltransferase (CPT) II led to a more than 1.5-fold increase of enzyme activity at physiological temperatures. At higher temperatures, however, there was a pronounced loss of activity. The most frequent variant S113L showed even at 37 °C a great activity loss...

Most animals depend upon olfaction to find food, mates, and to avoid predators. An animal's olfactory circuit helps it sense its olfactory environment and generate critical behavioral responses. The general architecture of the olfactory circuit, which is conserved across species, is made up of a few different neuronal types including first-order receptor neurons, second- and third-order neurons, and local interneurons. Each neuronal type differs in their morphology, physiology, and neurochemistry. However, several recent studies have suggested that there is intrinsic diversity even among neurons of the same type and that this diversity is important for neural function...

The critical period concept has been one of the most transcendent in science, education, and society forming the basis of our fixation on 'quality' of childhood experiences. The neural basis of this process has been revealed in developmental studies of visual, auditory and somatosensory maps and their enduring modification through manipulations of experience early in life. Olfaction, too, possesses a number of phenomena that share key characteristics with classical critical periods like sensitive temporal windows and experience dependence...

Human mast cell tryptase has been shown as an activating enzyme in matrix degradation process. The previous study suggest that tryptase either alone or in joining with activation of metalloproteinases, can associate in extra cellular matrix damage and the possible destruction of the basement membrane resulting in photoaging. Therefore the inhibition of tryptase activity is one of the most important therapeutic strategies against the photoaging. Curcumin has been shown to be a potential agent for preventing and/or treating the photoaging induced by UV radiation...

Metabolic syndrome, is associated impaired blood glucose level, insulin resistance, and dyslipidemia caused by abdominal obesity. Also, it is related with cardiovascular risk accumulation and cardiomyopathy. The hypothesis of this study was to examine the effect of thiazolidinediones such as pioglitazone on intracellular Na+ homeostasis in heart of metabolic syndrome male rats. Abdominal obesity and glucose intolerance had measured as a marker of metabolic syndrome. Intracellular Na+ concentration ([Na+ ]i ) at rest and [Na+ ]i during pacing with electrical field stimulation were determined in freshly isolated cardiomyocytes...

Olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) are generated throughout life from progenitor cells in the olfactory epithelium. OSN axons project in an odorant receptor-specific manner to the olfactory bulb (OB), forming an ordered array of glomeruli where they provide sensory input to OB neurons. The tetracycline transactivator (tTA) system permits developmental stage-specific expression of reporter genes in OSNs and has been widely used for structural and functional studies of the development and plasticity of the mouse olfactory system...

The ATP synthase is a ubiquitous nanomotor that fuels life by the synthesis of the chemical energy of ATP. In order to synthesize ATP, this enzyme is capable of rotating its central rotor in a reversible manner. In the clockwise (CW) direction, it functions as ATP synthase, while in counter clockwise (CCW) sense it functions as an proton pumping ATPase. In bacteria and mitochondria, there are two known canonical natural inhibitor proteins, namely the ε and IF1 subunits. These proteins regulate the CCW F1 FO -ATPase activity by blocking γ subunit rotation at the αDP /βDP /γ subunit interface in the F1 domain...

The paper examines membranotropic Ca2+ -dependent effects of ω-hydroxypalmitic acid (HPA), a product of ω-oxidation of fatty acids, on the isolated rat liver mitochondria and artificial membrane systems (liposomes). It was established that in the presence of Ca2+ , HPA induced aggregation of liver mitochondria, which was accompanied by the release of cytochrome c from the organelles. It was further demonstrated that the addition of Ca2+ to HPA-containing liposomes induced their aggregation and/or fusion. Ca2+ also caused the release of the fluorescent dye sulforhodamine B from liposomes, indicating their permeabilization...

Polysaccharide storage myopathy (PSSM) is a widely described cause of exertional rhabdomyolysis in horses. Mitochondria play a central role in cellular energetics and are involved in human glycogen storage diseases but their role has been overlooked in equine PSSM. We hypothesized that the mitochondrial function is impaired in the myofibers of PSSM-affected horses. Nine horses with a history of recurrent exercise-associated rhabdomyolysis were tested for the glycogen synthase 1 gene (GYS1) mutation: 5 were tested positive (PSSM group) and 4 were tested negative (horses suffering from rhabdomyolysis of unknown origin, RUO group)...

There is substantial evidence that Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) play a major part in cell functioning. Although their harmfulness through oxidative stress is well documented, their role in signaling and sensing as an oxidative signal still needs to be investigated. In most cells, the mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain (ETC) is the primary source of ROS. The production of ROS by reverse electron transfer through complex I has been demonstrated both in an experimental context but also in many pathophysiological situations...

Succinate-driven reverse electron transport (RET) is one of the main sources of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (mtROS) in ischemia-reperfusion injury. RET is dependent on mitochondrial membrane potential (Δψm ) and transmembrane pH difference (ΔpH), components of the proton motive force (pmf); a decrease in Δψm and/or ΔpH inhibits RET. In this study we aimed to determine which component of the pmf displays the more dominant effect on RET-provoked ROS generation in isolated guinea pig brain and heart mitochondria respiring on succinate or α-glycerophosphate (α-GP)...

The removal of afferent input to the olfactory bulb by both cautery and chemical olfactory organ ablation in adult zebrafish results in a significant decrease in volume of the ipsilateral olfactory bulb. To examine the effects of deafferentation at a cellular level, primary output neurons of the olfactory bulb, the mitral cells, were investigated using retrograde tract tracing with fluorescent dextran using ex vivo brain cultures. Morphological characteristics including the number of major dendritic branches, total length of dendritic branches, area of the dendritic arbor, overall dendritic complexity, and optical density of the arbor were used to determine the effects of deafferentation on mitral cell dendrites...

Diet-induced obesity (DIO) decreases the number of OMP+ olfactory sensory neurons (OSN) in the olfactory epithelium by 25% and reduces correlate axonal projections to the olfactory bulb (OB). Whether surviving OSNs have equivalent odor responsivity is largely unknown. Herein, we utilized c-fos immediate-early gene expression to map neuronal activity and determine whether mice weaned to control (CF), moderately-high fat (MHF), or high-fat (HF) diet for a period of 6 months had changes in odor activation. Diet-challenged M72-IRES-tau-GFP mice were exposed to either a preferred M72 (Olfr160) ligand, isopropyl tiglate, or clean air in a custom-made Bell-jar infusion chamber using an alternating odor exposure pattern generated by a picosprizer™...

Experiences, such as sensory learning, are known to induce plasticity in mammalian sensory systems. In recent years aversive olfactory learning-induced plasticity has been identified at all stages of the adult olfactory pathway; however, the underlying mechanisms have yet to be identified. Much of the work regarding mechanisms of olfactory associative learning comes from neonates, a time point before which the brain or olfactory system is fully developed. In addition, pups and adults often express different behavioral outcomes when subjected to the same olfactory aversive conditioning paradigm, making it difficult to directly attribute pup mechanisms of plasticity to adults...